The Arkansaw traveler., 1887-12-24
Complied for The Arkonsaw Traverer. SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY,

A kind of telephone which fixes the spoken words on chemically prepared paper has been produced by two young electricians of Munich.
 A broken pipe has interrupted the British Royal Society's boring in the Nile delta. At depth of 324 feet or 220 feet below sea level-the solid rock is still untouched.
 A coast survey of Iceland is to be made by Denmark, at an expense of S20,000. Not much is yet accurately known of the depths and channels of many of the great bays and inlets.
 Experiments with bearings of com- pressed vegetable parchment, instead of brass, are being made on Prussian railways. It is claimed that the ma- terial is very durable, tough and smooth, and requires much less oil than metal. The bearings are in suc- cessful use in German saw mill.
 A GREAT BIRD CoLLECTIoN.-Mor than 200, 900 bird skins are now con- tained in the Natural History Mu- scum at South Kensington, London. A recent acquisition is the collection of 27,o00 specimens made by the late marquis ofTweeddale. This was pre- sented by Captain w. Ramsay, the naturalist's nephew, who has included in his gift the Tweeddale library, em- bracing nearly 5000 ornithological volumes, many of them very rare and valuable.
 WHAT Is A DRorGHT?-Mr. Sy- mons, the English meteorologist, would have three kinds or degrees of drought recognized and precisely de- fined. A period of fourteen or more consecutive days without rain should be termed an absolute drought one of twenty eight or more consecutive days with a rainfall not exceeding a quarter ct an inch should be called a partial drought and at least sixty days with not over two inches of rain should be long drought.
 EXTRAORDINARY WATER-PowER.- On the coast of the Grecian Island of Cephalonia are large number of fis- sures or pits, in which the contained fresh or salt water rises and falls like the sea outside, though the water level inside is four feet lower than outside. What is still more remarka- ble is that the pits cannot be filled by running water into them, nor emptied by shutting it out. This singular diff ference of level has been utilized by causing flow of water from the sea to drive water-wh placed in one of the pits,
 NORTHERN The high est peaks in Northern Europe, with their height in feet from the latest de- terminations, are thus given by Prof. Mohn: Galdhoppigen, South Nor way, S,399; Glitter Tind, s,379; Sne- haetten, 7,566; Oraefajokull, 6,427: Sulitelma, Northern Norway, 6,l7S; Petermann's Spitze, East Greenland, 1l,41S Beerenburg, Jan Maven, S,350; Mount Misery, Bear Island, l,7S5; Hornsund Tind, Spitzbergen, 4,560; Richthofen Mount, Franz Josef Land, 5,lS4. Two of these peaks-Oraefa- jokull and Beerenburg-are volcanic.
 MAGIC OPALs.-Some specimens of an opaque white variety of hydro- phane, from Colorado locality, have shown the power of absorbing more than their own volume of water, ac- cording to MT. George F. Kunz. When water is poured on it slowly, the mineral first becomes very white and chalky, and then perfectly trans parent. This property is so strikingly developed that the finder has sug- gested the use of the "magic stone" in rings, lockets, charms, etc., to conceal photographs, hair or other objects which the wearer wishes to reveal only when caprice dictates.
 A FRENCH WAITER.-A novelty in the house of wealthy French gentle man, NJ. Gaston Menier, is a dining room electric railway. The track starts from the pantry, where the dishes are loaded upon a car, passes through tunnel to the dining room, and makes circuit of the center of the table, above which it is supported at height of four inches. The car, passing and stopping in front of each guest, rapidly performs all the essen- tial maneuvers of punctual and we'll ordered service, obeying with won- dertul precision the orders of the master of the house as given through a commutator at his right hand. This car weighs sixteen pounds, and is ca pable of carrying 150 pounds.
 BRITISH WEATHER.-The empire on which the sun never sets necessarily shows some variety of climate. These interesting extremes are derived from a summary of weather observations in 1886 at sixteen British stations scat tered over the globe: Adelaide had the highest maximum temperature in the shade, viz, l12.4 the highest tenn perature in the sun, 174.5; the least